Are your children safe this Halloween?

October 29, 2009 8:29:00 PM PDT

RALEIGH --

Halloween is supposed to be fun, but there's definitely a serious side -one that the Wake County sheriff says requires parents to pay close attention to safety and security. To ensure children's fun, parents and grandparents, like Ginger Brantley, have to think about safety.

"Some kind of a lighted instrument would be good and not having costumes that are going to trip them up," Brantley said.

Brantley's says her grandchildren will trick-or-treat in her Raleigh neighborhood Saturday.

But there's one thing that didn't cross her mind when it comes to safety, searching the sex offender registry for child molesters.

There are registered sex offenders in almost every neighborhood in Wake County -more than 500 of them and the county's sheriff will be thinking about them on Halloween.

"We know where you live, we have checks on you, we have neighbors that will call us in a heartbeat and that's what we want," Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said. "You know, we know people make mistakes, but we have so many people that repeat and we don't want to give them that opportunity to do something stupid."

Another parent who live nears a registered child molester says going to the sex offender Web site is part of her safety routine.

"Our kids stop at the end of the stop sign right and they're not allowed to go farther," parent Melinda Anderson said.

She says a parent will also be with the children just in case.

Anderson and the sheriff hopes all adults supervising trick-or-treating will remember to include the sex offender registry in their safety routine.

Brantley says she certainly will.

"That's one part of safety I never really thought about, but we need to," she said.